“I just remember calling him and leaving a message,” then-SU offensive coordinator Tim Lester said. “I knew he was probably about as down in the dumps as you could be. I sent him a really long text. I was like ‘Call me. I know you’re down. Just call me. Let’s talk.’”

Then-SU head coach Scott Shafer walked into the training room where Hunt was at halftime. “We’re going to get you that year back,” he told him. It wasn’t what Hunt wanted to hear then, but something he wishes he could hear now. When he went into the locker room moments later to see teammates, putting on a brave face and saying everything was OK was not what he wanted to do. He’d spent the last hour crying. He’d spend the rest of the night doing the same. He never checked the box score of the game and never looked at the stats.

“In my head, that’s my team,” Hunt said. “In everybody else’s head, that’s my team.”

He left the Carrier Dome before Syracuse’s 47-0 drubbing of Rhode Island was complete. He got into his aunt’s car and drove to her hotel a few blocks away. On the way he asked her through tears how he could do everything right and still see every result go horribly wrong.

He said he was a good person. He always did what was asked of him.

“Honest to God, I don’t have an answer but to say that God has his ways of doing things,” Hunt’s aunt Valencia Hunt said. “And that’s OK to someone in an OK position. When you’re dealing with a crushed spirit, then they can’t see God … That first night was the absolute hardest.”

The Season

When Hunt was injured in 2014, it allowed him to sit up in the booth with Lester and watch him call the offensive plays. Three or four times, he’d turn his headset on and make a suggestion about something he saw or give insight and advice. It all fit into the narrative of his growing process. His inability to play allowed him to step back and become a better quarterback, one that would be ready for big things in his final chance.

After his injury in September, though, he didn’t go back up to the booth for games. Aside from the fact that he couldn’t physically get upstairs to sit next to Lester, his purpose was better served on the sideline, as a calming presence to his younger replacements, Eric Dungey and Zack Mahoney.

He would also chart everything on offense. He had a list of every type of play the team would run, and it was his job to chart the different versions of the same play call.

Hunt could get lost in the game, watching, observing, thinking about how he would do one thing or the other. When he told Dungey after a mistake that it was OK and that it happens to everyone, it made a difference because he’d been there and done that.

Before games were always the hardest for Hunt — anticipating a game he couldn’t play in. But throwing the ball with running back Devante McFarlane, team managers, the coaches or whoever was around provided a reprieve. He’d build up a sweat and forget that none of it was real. Forget that he was immobile. Forget his leg was strapped in a boot. In his mind, then, he was the quarterback.

“It gave me a moment to where I just zoned out,” Hunt said. “I would go in my own little world and I just think about everything. I would just throw the ball and just think about, ‘Oh, drop back.’ Or think about, “Ah, the guy is going to jump the hitch. Alright, take the corner, but don’t look it off because the safety is going to run over the top.’ Little things like that goes on in my mind so much.”

Hunt missed classes for two weeks after his injury. He missed quarterbacks meetings for four weeks. He spent a lot of time alone in his room. His apartment was the one where other teammates often came to hang out. But when there wasn’t that commotion, there was more and more alone time.

His roommates, Ron Thompson, Marcus Coleman and Rony Charles, all had to carry his things down the stairs because it was already enough of a struggle for him to get up and down himself. Hunt was still a part of the team and his name was still on the roster. He went to the games. He sat next to Shafer on every plane ride so the two could catch up. He walked out for every coin flip. He was the face of the team, but to him it was an obsolete one.

“You feel like you’re missing out,” Hunt said. “You kind of feel like you’re forgotten in a way. Even though they don’t, but at the same time, you kind of feel like they forgot your abilities of how you could lead the team.”

Recovery and Rejection

Coming back would always be hard, but it’s harder now when there’s nothing to come back to. He knows what he’s capable of doing and believes he could be in the NFL. But Hunt is also not naive enough to believe he’s proven it to anyone else.

The most painful part of the recovery process was right after the surgery, which he had four days after the injury. They cut open his foot, pulled down his Achilles before it snapped back up and then re-sewed it. They numbed everything from his knee down to alleviate the pain, but it still hurt, much more than before the surgery.

He was in a cast for two weeks after surgery and used crutches and a scooter to get around. Then he was in a boot for another three weeks. Then he just walked on his own, the pain far from gone. Even nearly five months later, it still hurts when he wakes up in the morning.

“You have to learn how to walk again, you have to learn how to use the muscles again,” Hunt said. “And it’s like, man, another thing that I’ve got to overcome, just to do something I love.”

Assistant athletics director for athletic performance Will Hicks would have Hunt do a lot of squats and push-ups, because it was what he was capable of doing. In his one-on-one physical training, he would work on stretching and stamina and endurance exercises. His trainer would massage his foot to break up the scar tissue.

He says he’s ahead of schedule — typical recovery time is eight months — but not enough so to be a full Pro Day participant.

Throughout the beginning of his rehab, he watched as his replacement, Dungey, took over the team with flare. He thought about what he would do if we were to get a sixth year. Would he stay? Would he get to play? Lester suggested a possible change to tight end. Hunt told him he’d rather leave.

Those concerns were secondary, though. He had sent the NCAA all the documents. He gave them a personal statement, one he was convinced would rule out any doubt that he deserved another year. The school gave one, too. Lester told him that it was far less than likely that he would get another year, but it didn’t deter Hunt’s optimism.

That’s why, when former director of player development Bob Brotzki called Hunt into his office, there was little conversation to be had. “Thanks,” Hunt said as he walked out, giving no other reaction to the news that he wasn’t given a sixth year.

The NCAA declined to comment on the decision regarding Hunt, but referenced a 2014 ruling that the NCAA could “more heavily consider a student-athlete’s personal circumstances when making decisions.”

Hunt played in more than 30 percent of SU’s games in 2014, which is considered a full season by the NCAA. That, combined with his redshirt in 2011, and two on-field seasons in 2012 and 2013, made it so he wasn’t granted a sixth year.

He hired a lawyer to change things. If his appeal is denied, they could decide to go to court, though Hunt is doubtful he wants to do that. When he first met Dino Babers, the new SU head coach said they had to get Hunt back, but the two have had minimal contact since then, he said.

Hunt has had all of his family members call the NCAA. He had all their friends call the NCAA, too. He’s had hundreds of people call, and all they ask is “why?” Why someone who did things the right way, who played by the rules and just wants a shot, why can’t he get one? It’s the question that Hunt struggles with the most. There was no answer given to Hunt or everyone that called on his behalf. The NCAA just asked for them to stop.

“It’s almost like a tornado and you don’t know when you’re gonna land,” Hunt’s cousin Aurie Valencia said. “Everything’s happening and you don’t know why. You get one answer, but when you go to the next person, it’s a reverse answer. And now you’re back to square one.”

The Next Step

Hunt has watched the play over 1,000 times. He hasn’t seen it in months, but for the week after the injury, he watched his career-defining moment on loop.

“(I want) to try and believe that it really happened,” he said.

Whether Hunt believes or not doesn’t matter. Whether he’s optimistic or has come to terms with an unlikely return, it doesn’t alter reality. It’s his legacy at Syracuse that tortures him. And it’s because he didn’t get to leave the one he wanted.

I won a bowl game, he says. I guess I broke the record for having the most completions in a bowl game. I guess I won MVP in my first year starting, the first to do that since Donovan McNabb. I guess I’m 10th all-time on the Syracuse single-season passing leaders.

“When people tell me stuff like that, I’m like ‘Yeah, that’s cool.’ And yeah, I’m proud, and I’m grateful for the opportunity,” Hunt said. “But as far as happy with it? No. It kills me.”

Now, he’s working to get his commercial real estate license. He joined his childhood friend’s boiler company as a salesman. “This is the boiler of green,” Hunt says, as if rehearsed. “This is the Apple before Apple became so huge.” He wants to find success in everything he does, but is pained by the fact that it isn’t where it has always come from.

“I don’t think it’s football. I don’t think it’s business,” said his friend, Robby Vassallo. “I think it’s making something of himself.”

When Hunt talks about his recovery, his voice lights up and he gets excited. It’s happening quickly. He can do more and can walk better. It doesn’t solve all his problems, but it’s closer to solving one of them.

Hunt took one step, then another. He began to accelerate. He strode down the Ensley Center practice field, the place he used to be with his teammates. He limped a little and didn’t put all his pressure on his right foot.

When he led Syracuse to a Texas Bowl win in 2013, it was his 12-yard touchdown run to escape a collapsing pocket with 1:14 to go that was the game-winner. In his career, he ran for 13 touchdowns and threw for 11. His running ability defined him as a quarterback. He ran to the roars of crowded stadiums with the hope of future stardom.

In the Ensley Center, there were no fans. He took one step, then another, and then another. He ran to show that he could again, that it was all coming back to him. It showed progress without the meaning that was once attached to it.

One step, then another, each inching him to an evermore uncertain future.

Banner photo by Drew Osumi | Staff Photographer